Monday, June 12, 2006

The Islanders - The Enchanted Sound of The Islanders

This is one of the unsung classic exotica albums. The Islanders are probably just the two producers, Frank Metis and Randy Starr, with maybe a little help from session musicians (and "Special Sound Effects: Ralph F. Curtiss"). Released ca 1958. The great thing about this LP is that it sort of bridges the genres of surf and exotica with its liberal dose of surf ballad style electric guitar. The only thing is (and I'm by no means a surf music expert) if it came out around 1958, doesn't it predate classic surf music by two or three years? Anyway, most of these songs sit right at home on either surf mixes or exotica mixes no problemo.

I wanted to try and dupe you all into thinking I'm smart and somewhat knowledgable about this music so, of course, I did a quick google search and did not find all that much. I found a couple of references about Frank Metis (wrote "Kissin' Cousins" for Elvis) and also that this album is at least somewhat rare ("rare as hens teeth" one forum entry said). I checked ebay and there are quite a few 45s from this LP on right now but no copies of the album itself. So maybe it is rare and that's all the more reason to download it.

Plus it's KILLER CLASSIC exotica. Some of the original Metis-Starr songs on this LP that were later covered by the more well known exotica masters include: Tramp Steamer, The Enchanted Sea, Kon-Tiki and City Under the Sea.

Once again, I wish I had a cleaner copy. The rip is fair, quite a bit better than the Webley Edwards below, but not as good as I'd like. It sounds fair under headphones but just fine in my truck with all the ambient noise covering the imperfections. So get yourself a truck and listen to The Enchanted Sound of The Islanders.

I hope you can attach something else here, I'd like to read about their story, specially if they are creating music with human sense and exotic lines. I also think Randy Starr, whose original name was Warren Nadel, was the best guitar-playing, songwriting dentist from the Bronx. 23jj